Underneath
by sapphireswimming
Summary: Lasse really hates standing around with nothing to do


**For the-stray-liger who wants more Lasse, here's a scene set pre-show**

 **Title from a prompt by Ave-aria**

 **And did you know that the roller thingy mechanics use to work beneath vehicles is called a creeper? Because I did not but I think that's fantastic**

* * *

 **Underneath**

January 21, 2019

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Lasse stood outside the hangar door, head hung low as he debated whether or not to enter. He tapped the toes of his right boot against the wall, then turned abruptly at a noise behind him. But it was just the air conditioner hissing a fresh cycle in the Ptolemy's hallways.

Shaking his head, Lasse jammed the code into the keypad and pushed through before anyone else could come along and see him hanging outside in the hallway like an idiot.

A blue Haro sat silently on the table in the schematics hub, but it was otherwise empty. Lasse touched down beside it and looked around the hangar from Gundam to Gundam, hoping to catch sight of their mechanic somewhere among the towering, half-finished frames.

But he couldn't find Ian anywhere until he saw a pair of feet sticking out from underneath Dynames.

He made his way over in long, brisk strides, but stopped several meters short of the man, suddenly unsure again whether he should interrupt his work.

Before he could make up his mind one way or the other, there was a series of loud clanks and a heavy sigh from beneath the Gundam.

"Oh, come on," Ian grumbled. Then, louder, "Can't you see that I'm working?"

Lasse started in surprise. He hadn't thought Ian knew he was there. "Uh, yeah," he said, looking down as if he could see Ian through the layers of metal framing and wiring and plating. "That's…" he cleared his throat. "What I came to talk to you about."

One of Ian's feet twitched. "Oh, so it's you, Lasse," he said, and Lasse heard his knee hit metal with a loud _thump_. Ian hissed and must have tried to sit up reflexively because there was another _thump_ and then another and then a breathless string of curses.

Lasse came closer, grimaced more at each new noise, and hovered above his feet. "You, uh, you okay?" he asked tentatively.

"What kind of question is that?" Ian growled. "Of course I'm okay. Why are you even in here?" he snapped a second later. And then he scooted out on his creeper far enough to peer up at him. "Did Miss Sumeragi send you?" he asked, suspiciously.

Lasse blinked in surprise. "Uh, no," he said.

"Well, what then?" he asked impatiently, wiping an arm across his forehead. It left a dark streak of grease up into his hairline.

Lasse worried his lip for a moment. "I just," he said, taking in a deep breath, psyching himself up to presume upon the man. Then, before he could stop himself, "I want to work with you."

Ian frowned and started wheeling back under the Dynames.

"Hold on!" Lasse closed the short distance between them, arm outstretched as the mechanic all but disappeared beneath the massive hunk of metal.

He didn't come back out and Lasse heard the creeper magnetically anchor to the floor again.

"What?" Ian asked instead, voice echoing oddly against the uneven surface of the mech. "I'm not working fast enough, for you?" he asked, pushing out the words as he resumed his work with harsh clinking. "You think this old man can't get the job done by himself, is that it?" he continued through gritted teeth, grunting as something heavy and metal fell clattering to the hangar floor.

Lasse shook his head. "I didn't say that," he told him.

"But you _thought_ it?" Ian said indignantly, legs kicking out like he had forgotten he'd put the parking break back on and was trying to come back out anyway.

"No," Lasse protested as he took a step back. "That's not what I meant at all!"

When Ian stopped moving, Lasse tentatively knelt down on the smooth hangar floor and ducked down to look beneath the Dynames.

"I should hope not," Ian finally snorted, reaching up in the close quarters to tighten a particularly stubborn bolt above his head. Satisfied, he stuck the handle of the wrench in his mouth and tugged at some brightly colored wires.

"And besides," he started, before realizing that it was hard to talk around the wrench in his mouth. He set in on his chest, instead. "Besides," he said again. "I already have plenty of help. Have this whole fleet of Haros," he said, blindly gesturing off to his left.

Neither of them could see the Haros at this angle, but the spherical robots seemed to recognize that someone had been talking about them because, all at once, they started flapping very animatedly and happily chirped, "Fleet of Haros! Fleet of Haros!"

Lasse wiped a hand over his mouth, fingers lingering over the smooth bump of his old scar. He'd faced far scarier things in his short life than a prickly Ian Vashti. There could be no harm in asking one more time.

"Hey, Ian," he called, resting a forearm against the Dynames.

The tinkering stopped.

"What?" Ian asked, grudgingly. "You still here? What do you want?"

"Let me work with you," Lasse asked again, then continued before Ian could say no. "There's got to be stuff I can do, that I can help you with. Something the Haros can't do?" he hoped.

Ian sighed and abandoned the wires above him, resting his hands on his chest. "This is _my_ job, kid," he said, staring up at the Gundam's underbelly. "You should let me do it. You already have a job. In fact," he said, scooting around and raising his head far enough to raise an eyebrow at Lasse. "You have several jobs. Why don't you go do one of them?"

Lasse's fingers drummed along the smooth exterior plating of Dynames' leg.

"They don't—" he started, then stopped, wondering how to explain the problem. "I've already—" he tried again, breaking off with a sigh.

"I'm not needed on the bridge until 17:00 and there aren't any briefings today," he said. "I've already been in the gym for three hours and got kicked out of the simulation room because Lockon needed it. I'm—" he made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and Ian stared at him intently.

"I just want to do something," he said, his hands balling into fists. He banged against the Dynames. It _thunked_ hollowly and he deflated, frustration seeping out of him with each discordant reverberation.

"Please," he said, quietly. "I can help."

Ian's head thudded back against the padded head of his creeper and he sighed, recognizing all too well the pent up energy and need to be useful. There was a reason he had become the mechanic for Celestial Being's strike team, after all. He'd become a jack-of-all-trades over the years simply by virtue of never being able to stand still even when his work was done.

He grunted a little, knocking all of his tools off to the side and releasing the magnetic brake so he could push out again.

Lasse stood quickly to get out of his way.

He finally emerged, eyes narrowed at Lasse who was staring at him hopefully.

Huffing a little, he finally gave in with a shrug. "Fine," he agreed. "Fine." And Lasse was already beaming in gratitude.

"Yeah, yeah," he waved the look away with a gloved hand before scratching the back of his head. "No need to look so excited. You won't be by the time I'm finished with you," he assured him, sitting up on his creeper and resting an elbow on his knee.

"There are some cables that can be stripped down that are too thin for the Haros to hold properly," he said, gesturing back to the table as the fleet of Haros perked up again.

"And you're about the same height as Lockon, aren't you?" he asked, squinting up at him.

Lasse made a face and shook his head. "He's got a few centimeters on me," he said.

"Eh, close enough," Ian decided. "You're taller than me, anyway, so you can be the scale model for the stuff in Dynames' cockpit. Will save me the trouble of calling him in for adjustments every day. Might even be able to make it every _other_ day," he said, looking pleased at the prospect.

"And it might be nice to have an extra set of hands around, at that," he continued, quickly warming up to the thought now that he'd relented. "Because the Haros really aren't great at picking up screwdrivers off of flat metal surfaces when I accidentally leave them on the table. Plus, it will be nice to have someone else in the hangar," he said, tilting his head and staring off into the distance as he imagined not having to talk to himself all day.

"Was starting to feel like Allelujah, poor kid," he said, rolling off to the side and creakily pushing himself up, thankful for the low gravity as he stood up to his full height. He stretched until his joints popped.

"Maybe we should get him in here at some point," he muttered to himself, looking around.

When he caught sight of Lasse again, he grinned and clapped him on the arm. "This might not be such a bad idea, after all."

He made for the table, gratefully wiping off his gloves on the already-dirty cloth the blue Haro hold out to him. Then, hands on his hips, he surveyed the scattered wires, wrenches, pieces of insulation, and blueprints littering the tabletop in front of him.

When he realized Lasse wasn't next to him, he turned around. "Alright then, get over here," he called with a toss of his head and Lasse all but bounded over next to him.

He rummaged around for a length of green-coated wire and held one end out to Lasse, who kept pulling at it until he'd unearthed several feet of kinked and tangled wires.

Ian didn't seem to notice this. "Alright, you know how to use a stripper, right?"

Lasse nodded, unsure of whether he was supposed to start detangling the wires in his hand or grab the wire stripper the Haro had pulled out of a nearby toolbox.

"Perfect," Ian said, sweeping a hand across the table to clear it of enough clutter that he could heft a crate onto it.

He removed a cracked ceiling tile and empty container of H rations with a grimace, holding them both out to the Haro. "Toss these," he said. "I don't know why they were even in here," he muttered, diving back into the crate with both hands to pull out a variety of wires of different lengths, colors, and thicknesses.

"Alright," he said with a grin as he spread them on top of a blueprint of Virtue's chunky armor plating. "I'll need all of these stripped down a centimeter and a half on each end. You said you're here until 5:00, right?" he laughed, clapping a wide eyed Lasse on the back. "Have fun."

Then he turned to the Haros which had risen en masse to greet him after he emerged from beneath the Gundam.

"Yeah," he said, nodding to himself, "don't think this will be a bad idea at all."


End file.
